Groupon sees strong IPO despite viability questions

Groupon, the daily-deals site, made its debut on the NASDAQ Friday, with shares trading well above the IPO price of $20 a share, which also above the $16-18 range that the company set two weeks ago. At $20 a share, Groupon was valued at nearly $13 billion. The company sold 350 million shares in its IPO, representing just 5.5% of the entire company's 637.3 million shares outstanding.

Since filing to go public in June, Groupon has had to deal with questions about the viability of its business model and concerns from federal regulators over its accounting practices. Groupon has also had some high level departures recently, the company announced last month that its COO, Margo Georgiadis, had gone back to Google (GOOG), where she worked before joining Groupon in May. This came about six months after Groupon's previous COO, Rob Solomon, left the company.

Groupon plans to use the proceeds for working capital and other purposes, including potential acquisitions. The Groupon offering was highly anticipated, especially after the initial success of LinkedIn’s (LNKD) IPO, and its first day was the best showing since Teavana Holdings (TEA) listed in July.